American Idol

1. Paula Abdul is insane.
2. Sarah saved Syesha. She voted for her. She actually called (twice) and voted in American Idol.

Montreal, eh?

A couple weeks ago I had to run up to Montreal. The city is nice, though my first impression was that it was grey, industrial, and rather ugly. Then I found the busy streets and the edges of the old town that mix older buildings with new construction. The city is extremely dense, missing the surface lots common in smaller cities.

That density and mix of old and new is potential I see in Cincinnati. The city is already dense as compared to many comparable cities and has a tremendous, large repository of 100 year old architecture on the border of the central business district. The buildings are largely vacant and are beginning to be restored.

Montreal is dissimilar to Cincinnati in that it got over 10 feet of snow this year. That is part of the reason I saw it as a grey wasteland on first glance. As my beloved Madison, WI was attacked for the spring residue of gravel and salt that covers everything each April (link here), Montreal looked much the same.

Part of their issue is the lack of space to put the snow. Here is a picture of the snow still about 8 feet high between two buildings. There was a giant mountain of snow close to 200 feet high and a quarter mile long in an old rail yard. Because of the record snow fall, this year was the first year they had to use it. A local told me that if they don't bulldoze the pile, it is predicted to last until next year. In effect it would be a man made glacier.

I may miss the Wisconsin snow, but I'm glad we don't have glaciers here in Cincinnati.

Fountain square is abloom!

The city is fun in the summer with so much to do. The square is covered with a giant planting of flowers. It is slightly less impressive than Keukenhof was last year, but good for the center of town.

Sarah had book club and went to the Rhythm in Motion class last week so I was home alone with Finn. I saw my options as either stay home and listen to the game or take a walk down to the game. I decided that we'd go to the game. Weekday games are free for military members (active and reserve) as are kids under 3. So, we just strolled on down and watched them lose, twice.

However we did get to see Griffey Jr hit homer number 597. See the video here. Hopefully he'll wait to hit number 600 until they get back from their current road trip.

Until then, there is plenty of other things to do like see the Butterfly show at the Krohn, the Bodies exhibit at the Museum Center, hanging out at Centennial Park, see the horses at Riverdowns, ...

Mister Maestro

A few weeks ago we took a trip up to Wisconsin to visit my family. As always, we took plenty of pictures.

In addition to just seeing family, we stopped into a friend's house too. There, we met Cailin's new little girl, Amalia. It's quite a realization to see a newborn and remember what is was like and how things change so very much in only one year.

We also went to the Vilas Park zoo. Madison has kept the park small and can then keep admission free. I like the zoo and though it doesn't have much, they have been able to modernize in stages to have some very neat exhibits like the otter cage.

Finn got to play on his great-grandparents' piano. He really seems to like it. I've stitched together the videos we took so you can see his entire repertoire. He plays one handed so he can hold his practice golfball at all times.

Summer's here

If Opening Day is the unofficial start of summer, perhaps what I just heard is the official start. The first ice cream truck drove by playing its song. It reminded me of Eddie Murphy's act about the ice cream truck from Delirious. That was funny.

Bonus picture

Because of the recent lack of posts, I will even throw in this bonus picture at no cost to you. Finn decided to help with the laundry. Or, perhaps, he was jealous that mom got to play with the laundry basket instead of him. Either way it made a nice picture.

Our obsession with Weeds

This week's SoTW is the theme from our new obsession, Showtime's series Weeds. The show is of a young widow with two children who turns to selling drugs in her suburb to support her family after her husband dies. The show is funny and comments on tough issues directly (race, drugs, love) and the lighter issues less directly (sprawl, materialism, work).



I love this opening sequence and find it brilliant. We weren't sure what the definition of ticky-tacky is, and neither did the lyricist either since she is credited with coining the term in the OED. Still, the opening sequence is wonderful and we thought, perhaps Agrestic was a new subdivision in West Chester or Mason.

We watch the show as part of our Netflix subscription, which is the greatest thing ever. When we got back from Germany, because of our disgust of Time Warner, we never hooked cable back up, and just use Netflix for all our movies and TV. We highly recommend both Netflix and Weeds.

Special thanks to Showtime for their generous sponsorship of this week's song of the week.

Finn's first haircut

Finn's joined the ranks of those of us who have had a haircut! He was excited when he saw that the event would be at Kids Kuts since they have sch a folksy, yet incorrect, way of spelling.

In this first picture you can see that he was in rather desperate need of a kut. the kurls are nice, but they get all matted, dirty, and unmanageable. Perched on his yellow elephant he was ready to take this on.



Kontrary to the experience being had by the child on the pink chipmunk, Finn seemed unemotional about the experience while it was okkuring. He would look around at the TVs or the screaming kid and the trained kutter would keep up by running around his chair.



Afterward he was happy that he got a balloon, which is still one his favorite things in the world. He still seemed unsold on the idea of the part on his hair. He thought that it made him look too serious. He prefers to look kute.



Once he got home and mom messied up his hair again, he was much more pleased with the kut. It seems that he prefers the way he style his own hair than the way the professionals do it for him. Though it is hardly surprising since he want to to most things for himself now, like eating with a spoon. He hasn't mastered that art, but really, who has?



For those who are keeping track, this event actually happened on April 4th, putting us still over 2 weeks in arrears on posting.

Quite possibly, he is ready for his second kut by now. Or has he already had it but it just isn't posted yet? As everyone knows the second of anything isn't worthy of posting so don't wait around too long for that.

When is the 'W' silent?

In the word 'Two'. Why is it there? Germanic roots.

Opening Day

We are so far behind on posting that this post about the Reds' Opening Day is going up after they have a 6-7 record. They've had some good pitching (the last game being an exception) but their offense has been woeful. Opening Day lead the way for those low-scoring games and also for them losing.


A bunch of us all put our names in for the ticket lottery and Jeff was drawn to be able to get tickets. So Jeff, Angela, Rowan, me, Sarah and Finn all went down to the game. We all had fun and took plenty of pictures. We saw Mr. Redleg, Griffey Jr. and plenty of rainy clouds. Finn appeared to like the crowd the best, although he pointed at almost everything in stadium. His other favorite thing was sitting in his own seat.


Finn is very different than he was at his first baseball game. That was back in DC last year in a stadium they don't even use anymore. Who would have thought that a one year old could say "I remember when the 'Nats used to play in RFK. That place was terrible."

He also was different than he was at Reds games towards the end of last season. He would sit in the stroller and eat and then fall asleep. He is definitely an older boy now who is really seeing and trying to figure out the world around him. For example, he really seemed to be trying to figure out how Edwin Encarnacion threw a routine ground ball into the box seats instead of the first baseman's mitt. I couldn't explain it either.

It is clearly spring in Cincinnati. The Reds are playing and people are already giving up on them less than 10% of the way into the season. Still there is that glimmer of hope for a good season that will keep us going back to the park time and again this year. Go Reds.

The rest of the pictures

With a weekend with relatively few things scheduled, I am taking care of some very overdue business. We have photos from January still in our temporary file waiting to be sorted and filed away. It also gave me some time to share more of our photos that I hadn't gotten too yet.

First on that list is the visit from Memé. More happened than just going to the park. They went to the Children's Museum where there is a lot of great things to do. Finn favorites included the sand table and the aquarium.



They also took a trip up I-75 to Cincinnati's new Ikea that recently opened. Those crafty Swedes keep taking over more and more of our country.

I missed most of the visit since I was off in Oklahoma City for business. I used to complain more about that place, but it is (marginally) better than Texas so I'll accept what it has to offer.

Here are the pictures of the visit.

Seasons change?

The recent spat of warm weather has brought out both the flowers and feelings of summer. This is the great part of spring and summer when the sun warms (not scorches), the flowers blossom (not dead grass), and the streets are full of people (not too stinky yet).



Last week when Memé was visiting, we all went down to Sawyer Point park for a ride on the swings and playground. In the picture above you can see the springtime flowers and the swingtime fun happening the background. Below, you can see that I meant that we all went to play on the playground and not just Finn.



Finn did get to try a new event in the playground decathlon: the solo slide. He was a natural (if the proper technique involved a startled look and a lean backward for stability). However the dismount always ended with a big smile and trying to crawl back up the slide for another go.

The summer fun influenced the choice in Song of the Week. It's the Mungo Jerry classic, Summertime. I hope you enjoy the song and the photo album.

Who Does Finn Look Like?

I'm not totally sure I agree with the results of this (I think Finn looks more like Beach). But thanks to Cailin and Nicolai from Our Amazing Amalia for posting the link (http://www.myheritage.com/). There are lots of cool toys on the site for anyone looking for ways to procrastinate - I've just blown 30 minutes to find out I look 78% like Jessica Biel. OK, I'll go with that!

Cincinnati area soldier found

The parents of a local soldier who has been missing for 4 years have learned that he is dead. Listed as missing or captured for the last four years, the parents now know where there son is and maybe what happened.

I can't imagine what they've been going through or what they felt when they heard he was found. I can't come close to understanding, but even thinking about something happening to Finn makes my stomach knot.

I can imagine that knowing the truth would be better than the horror of possibilities that would go through my mind. Our sympathy goes out to them and the countless other parents who have suffered the unbelievable tragedy of losing a child.

The Boss

On our way home from dropping Memé off at the airport yesterday we passed the Def Jam, Rick Ro$$ tour bus. That inspired me for this week's Music video of the week.



I am always excited to see that big name shows are constantly coming through Cincinnati. Though it seems that I only see hip-hop and WWE tour buses. Perhaps that's because they do a better job at self promotion than the Jonas Brothers.

I sure that last night's Rick Ro$$ show was awesome and loud. Unfortunately, with a little baby, our days of rap concerts are well behind us. However, while Finn napped today, Sarah went down the street to the Cincinnati Ballet's final performance of 1001 Arabian Nights. I'm sure it was as awesome, but probably not as loud. I'll get the full report when she gets back.

UPDATE: The ballet was fabulous. The costumes were amazing, the dance entertaining. Sarah would recommend it for everyone, except that was their last show.

Myrtle Beach Photos

I've finally put the pictures from Myrtle Beach up on-line. There are sharks, kids, "New England", birds, sand, and waves. I promise most of the pictures are more pleasent than this one of our "rot tub". The owners were nice enough to knock a couple bucks off the price of the house since no one could use it without sever risk of developing a body fungus.



It was a fun time in the sun on the beach. We learned than Finn loves the beach and we'll try and get a couple more beach vacations in as soon as we can.

Congrats to Cailin and Nicolai!

Our friends back in Madison, Cailin and Nicolai, just had a beautiful baby girl named Amalia. They've started a blog of ther own at Our Amazing Amalia. It sounds like things are off to a terrific start. Our best wishes to them as they begin to establish their lives as parents.

Music Video Update

This week's video goes against most of the criteria, primarily high dancibility. However, it seemed very appropriate following our trip to South Carolina.

We found that she is a fine representative of the South Carolinians. The state has a beatiful exterior. The views from the house were absolutely amazing, with the sun rising over the pier each morning and the full moon coming up each night.



The beaches were fantastic, if not a little cold. Finn loved everything about the beach too. He would run out into the ocean, play in the sand, help his papa dig a hole, chase the seagulls while signing "bird", and wave to all the dogs being walked down the beach. There will b many more pictures of the trip to come after we resettle back into our house.



But, behind that pretty front (read: shoreline) there is not much to enjoy. The drive from I-95 to the beach down a small state road took us through parts of the state that appeared unfriendly to us "Yanks". Being election season there were many signs for "Big Al" and "Major McClellan". Many houses were burned down and left that way. Most homes were portable. The battle flag of the confederacy was spotted a number of times as well. Finally, we passed a diner called Tarbaby's.

Still, we really enjoyed the pretty beachfront and laughed at the rest. On reflection, those things aren't actually that funny. For example the diner owners don't see anything wrong with the name Tarbaby's. It's just like the Miss South Carolina isn't that funny if you realize she was really trying. But what else can you do? I suppse that you can still laugh...

New Shoes

Now that Finn walks around all the time, we figure that he should have real shoes and not just the slippers that he's been wearing. Don't get me wrong, wearing slippers all the time sounds fantastic. I think that I would like to do that. However, we are down in South Carolina with the The Daily Squinkers. We went for a walk on the beach this morning and Finn's feet got wet when hi slippers soaked through.

We headed off to the shoe store this afternoon and selected his first pair of real shoes. They are a nice brown sandal style. Practical, yet sassy.


He's a size 3.5-wide. The lady said that his feet are very thick or tall; clearly he has his mom's feet and not his papa's ski-feet. She recommened that we get 4W to have room to grow. Yikes, that made me remember that kids outgrow their shoes monthly.

Well another big step has been crossed. Anyone know of a good shoe bronzing company?

This week's song of the week

Last week's snow reminded both of us of our youth spent "way up north" and got me thinking about visions of snow piled up as high as cars. For people from Madison, that also conjures images of the old Pizza Pit ad. So I have chosen that classic ad, with the kids singing, as the Song of the Week as can be seen in the bar to the right.

Our neighbors made a life-sized (Finn-sized) snow man in the median. Finn tried to make friends with him, but figured that that he was just too shy.


Snow is a very interesting thing for a little boy. It's very cold. It falls apart. It disappears if a small piece is on your hand. The world gets so bright and white.

For Finn, the snow was even more fun as we walked through it. I imagine from a baby's perspective it looks like your foot disappears if you step into the snow. When you kick through the snow, watching it break apart and scatter, it must look like the amazing creation of new things out of the ground. Plus boys like to see things break and splatter. I figure that was the appeal of Gallagher.




So you can see, he really liked watching me kick the snow. Too bad that won't happen again until next year.